Design a scheduling system
for a hospital with multiple branches.
About this question
Category
System Design
Subcategory
Two-Sided Marketplaces
Difficulty
Easy
Est. time
40 min
What this question helps you practice
This system design question tests whether you can model a real-world scheduling workflow with constraints across locations, doctors, rooms, and patients. A strong answer should cover core entities, availability logic, conflict prevention, notifications, and operational failure cases.
How to practice
Clarify scope and constraints
Ask about appointment types, branch rules, provider schedules, walk-ins, cancellation policy, and peak load.
Design core workflow
Model slot search, booking, confirmation, rescheduling, notification, and admin override flows.
Address concurrency and failure
Explain locking or transactional booking, idempotency, audit logs, and fallback behavior.
Strong answer signals
Prevents double booking with clear consistency boundaries around slot reservation.
Considers branch-level capacity, provider availability, room constraints, and patient preferences.
Includes operational needs such as reminders, no-shows, manual overrides, and reporting.
Common mistakes
Treating scheduling as a simple calendar without real-world capacity constraints.
Ignoring concurrent booking attempts for the same provider, room, or slot.
Skipping cancellation, reschedule, no-show, or notification failure scenarios.
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